


The Hard Way

by Penknife



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Developing Friendships, Gen, Huddling For Warmth, Lyrium Addiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-11
Updated: 2019-09-11
Packaged: 2020-10-14 16:34:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20603891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Penknife/pseuds/Penknife
Summary: Cullen blames the Inquisition's scouts for getting them lost in the wilderness. (His other problems, he can only blame on himself.)





	The Hard Way

With a stone wall at their backs, canvas rigged among the evergreen boughs to break the wind, and softly-falling snow to hide their tracks, Cullen felt the day was finally improving. Dorian huddled like an indignant cat at the other end of the makeshift shelter, looking considerably less satisfied. 

"Have you considered doing something about these southern winters?" Dorian asked. "Living somewhere else, perhaps?" 

"What would actually stop you complaining?" Cullen asked, rubbing his hands together and feeling sensation returning to them. The fact that it came with a dull ache that settled in his bones was something he dismissed as the price of a long day of hard exertion in foul weather. 

"The embrace of icy death, perhaps? Although even then I intend to protest that someone has made a terrible mistake." 

"Someone has," Cullen said. He considered Dorian a friend, at this point, but not at the top of the list of people he'd like to be lost in the woods with. "Whichever scouts drew these maps." 

"I don't know what you're talking about, this looks like the Inquisition's forward camp to me. Warm blankets, warm fires, someone roasting something unfortunate on a spit—" 

"Please don't mention supper unless you can produce one." 

"I'm afraid we set out so quickly, I left the picnic hamper behind. Perhaps the Inquisition's scouts will drop by in the morning and deliver a hot breakfast." 

"Wake me if they do," Cullen said, and closed his eyes. 

When he woke, his first thought was that the weather had changed. He was cold all the way through, shivering in the leaden chill. His second was the sinking realization that the weather had, if anything, improved; the wind had died, and the snow was drifting down in fat feathery flakes that suggested it would begin melting as soon as the sun touched it in the morning. 

"Have we frozen to death yet?" Dorian muttered as Cullen stirred. 

"It isn't that cold," Cullen said, clenching his jaw in an attempt to keep his teeth from chattering. His head ached as if someone had taken a hammer to it in the night. 

"Don't think me ungrateful for the shelter," Dorian said. "Mind you, I'd rather be in a lovely featherbed, but thanks to your woodcraft skills, I am actually entirely confident that I'll survive the night." There was a pause. "You, on the other hand, look terrible." 

"I'm fine." 

He resented all of this, deeply and with a bitterness that alarmed him. It wasn't fair at thirty to ache like an old man after a day's hard exercise. It wasn't fair to feel cold to the bone on a night he would once have considered mild. It wasn't fair that he was reluctant, now, to try to sleep again, knowing how likely he was to wake Dorian when the dreams turned bad. 

"Do all Templars share your peculiar definition of the word 'fine'?" 

It wasn't fair that the word "Templars" was all it took to wake sense memory, the slide of his thumbs over the infusion case that he could open in the dark, the urgent fumble with glass, the sweet metallic taste in his mouth and the rush of warm well-being— 

He knew, rationally, that he didn't need it. The worst of the withdrawal pangs were behind him. Their relentless brutal return whenever he overtaxed himself was probably no actual threat to life or sanity. What he needed was a hot bath and several good nights' sleep in his own bed. 

This wasn't an emergency. If it were an emergency, then he might be forced to take whatever measures were necessary—but it wasn't, in fact, an emergency. 

It registered that Dorian was still waiting for an answer, with an expression of increasing concern. 

"I'm not a Templar," Cullen said. "Not anymore." 

"Even so—" 

"You have lyrium in your pack?" 

"I do," Dorian said. "For emergencies, and if that's the trouble—" He was already reaching for his pack. 

"I don't want it," Cullen said, which felt like a monumental untruth, but at least hopefully conveyed his intentions. "I don't use it anymore." 

"I take it, then, that it's not a vital necessity?" Dorian asked with an unconvincing show of unconcern. 

"Ask me again when I'm certain myself," Cullen said, and then wished he hadn’t. "That is to say, no, it isn’t. Not anymore. It's a temptation. But I'll be well enough tomorrow without it." 

"If I'd known it would trouble your peace of mind, I would have happily told you that I'd left the lyrium behind with the picnic basket. Why did you ask?" 

"Less than perfect self-control," Cullen said grimly. 

"What can I do?" 

Dorian was, Cullen had already concluded, less self-absorbed than he pretended. He wasn't sure he was grateful for that at the moment. 

"Pretend convincingly in future that we never had this conversation." 

"Ah, the traditional pact of perpetual denial. An excellent strategy for handling one's problems. I highly recommend it." There was another lengthy pause, which Cullen spent trying to stop shivering by force of will. "But, really, what can I do?" 

Cullen breathed a humorless laugh. "Nothing, unless you brought a hot cup of tea with you in that hamper.” 

“Tragically not, but I could manage to supply a stiff drink.” 

Cullen regarded the bottle Dorian produced with skepticism. “Are we talking about wine, or something found clutched in a skeleton’s hand?” 

Dorian uncorked the bottle and took an experimental swallow. His expression didn’t recommend the vintage. “I think this could not _entirely_ untruthfully be described as wine.” 

“Wonderful.” Cullen took the offered bottle, though, and raised it boldly to his lips. The stuff burned going down, and threatened for a queasy moment to come straight back up again, but it left a spreading warmth behind it. “Hard to believe anyone ever willingly bought that.” 

“Amazing, isn’t it?" Dorian took the bottle and drank thirstily himself, and then made a dramatic face. "That's appalling. More?” 

Cullen pushed the bottle away urgently despite the crawling thirst at the back of his throat. “I’ll be sick,” he said from between gritted teeth. 

“Not an experience I relish, although after everything else that’s happened to these boots …” Dorian trailed off, perhaps at his lack of reply. There was nothing he could think of to say that wasn’t so self-lacerating he’d regret having said it later. “Do you always take being unwell as a personal failing?” Dorian asked, with what might have been genuine curiosity. 

"It's self-inflicted." 

"So are hangovers, but you wouldn't be cruel to a man suffering from one." 

"I might speak to him sternly about self-discipline." 

"I think you're exercising it. And obviously in a worthy cause." 

"Do you think so?" 

Dorian shrugged. "I think I don't know enough to argue the point one way or the other, but you believe it's one, or you wouldn't put yourself through this. Self-punishment isn’t your vice." 

"Believe me, if I could take a hot bath and go to bed, I would." 

"Would you, though? There’s a persistent rumor in Skyhold that you never sleep." 

"I probably would. I am learning to rest before I make it worse." 

"So when you said you'd be better in the morning…" 

"Leave me my illusions." 

"That I understand." There was a prolonged pause. "I can hear your teeth chattering from here." 

"For the love of—please, let it be." 

"I only thought you might be warmer at closer quarters. That's not an indecent advance, if you're unclear on that point,” Dorian said, a little stiffly. “I do have better lines than 'let us now huddle together for warmth.' And even leaving questions of fundamental inclinations aside, you're obviously in no state to be importuned." 

"I don't think you're importuning." 

"Well, then." 

"But there's no need." 

"As much as it alarms me to hear myself sounding like Cassandra—and I trust you won’t tell her I made the comparison—what would you say to one of the men under your command, if he were being as stubborn as you?" 

"To try and get warm," Cullen said after a minute. He shifted to put his shoulder against Dorian’s, a comforting heat, and let Dorian tuck his thin blanket around the two of them. It felt like absurd self-indulgence, but he had to admit it was a relief to eventually stop shivering. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, determined not to sleep. 

The nightmare could have been far worse—the demon with its fingers crawling across his skin was only a demon, it wasn't wearing the hollowed-out corpse of a friend—but he still woke scrabbling for his sword. 

Dorian started violently and reached for his own staff, throwing a barrier over them both in what was probably instinctive reaction. The air lit and prickled cool against Cullen's skin, and for a moment the rational knowledge that a mage’s protective barrier was not a prison to its occupants didn't help at all. He was aware of his own instinctive attempt to damp the magic, an unpleasantly impotent effort.

He bit back sharp words that were entirely uncalled for. “Please take that down,” he said instead, as evenly as he could manage. 

“Yes, it doesn't seem to be required,” Dorian said, sounding chagrined. “I am sorry if I woke you. Somehow I never sleep soundly while being pursued through the wilderness.” 

“I suspect I woke you.” 

“Unreasonable of us both to assume that any sound in the forest is someone trying to kill us. That never happens.” 

“Perhaps some animal,” Cullen said, aware that seizing on the offered excuse was unworthy, and grateful for it nevertheless. 

“Hopefully the small, edible kind, not the fierce, thinks-we're-edible kind.” 

“We can hope.” 

Dorian leaned back against the stone wall, tilting his head back up to see the sky through the gaps in canvas and tree branches. “It’s almost dawn in any case.” 

Dawn would bring a long walk in search of the Inquisition camp while trying to cover their own tracks in new-fallen snow. It would be infinitely easier without a pounding headache and the lingering feeling that his skin was trying to crawl away on its own. 

“I suppose you still have that lyrium.” It was probably entirely perverse to want to hear that it was close at hand, but there was only so much self-control he had the energy to exert. 

“Do you know, I left it behind with the hot mulled wine.” 

It wasn't a persuasive lie, but it was a kind one. “Do you know, I think you’re not nearly as heartless as you’d like for people to believe.” 

“My secrets are all revealed. I have no choice but to slip away into the night, change my name, and take up a life of piracy on the high seas.” 

“You get seasick on a mill-pond,” Cullen pointed out. 

“Hush, you’re spoiling the fantasy. When you think about it, there are almost no demons, darkspawn, Venatori, red Templars, or ravenous bears at sea. My family is also notably not to be found there. I believe I've invented the ideal life. If only someone would devise waterproof books.” 

The sky was definitely lightening. “I’m sure you'd survive without books.” 

“Impossible,” Dorian said. As he stowed his effects efficiently in his pack, Cullen noted that Dorian was, in fact, carrying at least one book, as well as the bottle of wine. There were probably questions that should be asked at some point about a drinking habit that made Thedas’s worst vintage seem worth scavenging, but he was excruciatingly aware that he wasn’t in any position to judge. “I’ve been separated from the library for days, and already I feel weak.” 

“I’m sure you’ll soldier on,” Cullen said. He forced himself to replace all thoughts of just lying here a while longer with the tantalizing prospect of a hot meal and a warm fire somewhere ahead. It was enough to get him moving, and he prodded Dorian to do the same. “The sooner we start walking, the sooner we’ll find the camp.” 

“I’m sure there’s some easier way,” Dorian said, but he shouldered his pack and turned his face toward the east, where the sky was lightening through the falling snow.


End file.
